Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said yesterday that it made a "terrible" mistake in approving a recent newspaper advertisement that equated a proposed Arizona zoning ordinance with Nazi book-burning.

The full-page advertisement included a 1933 photo of people throwing books on a pyre at Berlin's Opernplatz. It was run as part of a campaign against a Flagstaff ballot proposal that would restrict Wal-Mart from expanding a local store to include a grocery.

The accompanying text read "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not . . . So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The bottom of the advertisement announced that the ad was "Paid for by Protect Flagstaff's Future-Major Funding by Wal-Mart (Bentonville, AR)."

The ad, which ran May 8 in the Arizona Daily Sun, was "reviewed and approved by Wal-Mart, but we did not know what the photo was from. We obviously should have asked more questions," said Daphne Moore, Wal-Mart's director of community affairs. She said the company will also issue a letter of apology to the Arizona Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, members of Congress and the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union criticized the company for the advertisement.

"It's not the imagery itself. It trivializes the Nazis and what they did. And to try to attach that imagery to a municipal election goes beyond distasteful," said Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the ADL.

Lawmakers introduce a bill to make the retailer cover the costs for more of its employees so the state won't have to foot the bill.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania, like most states, has rolled out the red carpet for Wal-Mart, offering up millions in tax incentives and grants over the last decade to reel in the retail giant.

In return, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has delivered jobs - 40,000 of them - making it the largest private employer in the state. But critics say the jobs have come with a hidden cost: An unusually high percentage of Wal-Mart workers do not have company-paid health insurance, leaving them to rely on taxpayer-subsidized care.

Nobody knows how much such workers cost Pennsylvania taxpayers, although several Democratic lawmakers claim it could be as much as $30 million a year. The lawmakers, joining a well-financed national campaign led by labor unions, have proposed legislation to get an exact answer.

The bill would require Pennsylvania companies with 20 or more employees to issue annual reports stating how many of them are receiving Medical Assistance. The bill is the first step, sponsors say, toward mandating that large companies pay their fair share of health-care costs.

"Wal-Mart is the most notorious abuser of Medical Assistance programs nationwide based on states that have done studies," said Rep. Mike Veon (D., Beaver), a cosponsor of the bill. "We need to find a way to encourage or require employers to provide affordable health-care insurance."

Wal-Mart defends its health-benefits program. The company, based in Bentonville, Ark., says it covers health care for more than half its employees, and opens a route off state Medicaid rolls.

"It's important to note that Wal-Mart is providing access to health care that people didn't receive before they came to us," spokesman Dan Fogleman said.

Other states already have taken the next legislative step. In April, the Maryland General Assembly approved a bill requiring companies employing more than 10,000 people to spend 8 percent of profits made in the state on health care. Only Wal-Mart qualifies under the bill, which the Republican governor has vowed to veto.

In New Jersey, Assemblyman Louis Greenwald (D., Camden) introduced a bill on Thursday that would require employers with more than 10,000 workers to increase the level of their health-care coverage or pay an additional $2.45 per worker hour into the state's Medicaid program. The target: Wal-Mart, which employs 12,000 people in New Jersey.

"Wal-Mart must stop saddling taxpayers with employees' health-care bills, and take the initiative to provide better health coverage on their own," Greenwald said in a statement.

A 2003 Harvard Business School case study found that Wal-Mart paid an average $3,500 a year for employee health care, while the average for the wholesale/retail sector was $4,800, and $5,600 per worker for all U.S. employers.

The Harvard report offered the example of a worker earning $16,800 after three years with Wal-Mart who did not have health insurance. "She felt that she could not afford to enroll in Wal-Mart's medical plan because that would have subtracted as much as $85 from her biweekly paycheck of $550, so she did without and relied on Medicaid for her son," it said.

Studies conducted recently in 13 states show a high ratio of Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid.

In Tennessee, for instance, almost 25 percent of Wal-Mart's 37,000 employees are covered under the state's Medicaid program, according to a January article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Business groups in Pennsylvania and elsewhere oppose the health-care bills, saying they are the first step toward forcing employers to cover such benefits. The proposals include small businesses, which say they can't afford it.

"Instead of looking at how many employees are on Medical Assistance, we should look at reasons why the companies can't afford health insurance," said Kevin Shivers, Pennsylvania state director of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Wal-Mart has faced a slew of lawsuits in recent years over allegations of sex discrimination, illegal hiring of immigrants, and child-labor practices. But it is the health-care issue that has prompted legislation aimed largely at Wal-Mart in as many as 11 states.

A company spokesman said that Wal-Mart did not oppose all disclosure bills - only those that it felt unfairly targeted Wal-Mart.

"They are nothing more than a political attempt by organized labor to make Wal-Mart less competitive in certain states," said Nate Hurst, a Wal-Mart spokesman.

Wal-Mart says 56 percent of its workers are covered through the company's health plan. Premiums start at $40 a month for single workers and $155 for families. The rest are covered by other private and public health plans.

But critics say Wal-Mart's long waiting period to qualify for health coverage (six months for full-time employees and two years for part-timers), coupled with the health program's $1,000 deductible, keeps it out of reach for most working families.

As a result, critics say, families are turning to public aid just as most states and the federal government are seeking to scale back Medicaid.

In Pennsylvania, the legislature must close a $400 million deficit in the budget of the Department of Public Welfare before the fiscal year starts July 1. Hospitals and health-care advocates oppose Gov. Rendell's proposal to reach that goal by limiting benefits and increasing copays for recipients.

Veon, the Beaver County Democrat, would like to see his bill included in the 2005-2006 budget package to be considered by the General Assembly next month. Kate Philips, the governor's spokeswoman, said Rendell supported the spirit of the bill but had not yet taken a position.

"The governor believes that anyone working full time should be able to survive without depending on the state," Philips said.

Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation. Like G.M. in its prime, it has become a widely emulated business icon. But there the resemblance ends.

The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year. The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers.

True, not everyone is badly paid. In 1968, the head of General Motors received about $4 million in today's dollars - and that was considered extravagant. But last year Scott Lee Jr., Wal-Mart's chief executive, was paid $17.5 million. That is, every two weeks Mr. Lee was paid about as much as his average employee will earn in a lifetime.

Not that many of them will actually spend a lifetime at Wal-Mart: more than 40 percent of the company's workers leave every year.

I'm not trying either to romanticize the General Motors of yore or to portray Wal-Mart as the root of all evil. GM was , and Wal-Mart is, a product of its time. And there's no easy way to reverse the changes.

What should be clear, however, is that the public safety net F.D.R. and L.B.J. created is more important than ever, now that workers in the world's richest nation can no longer count on the private sector to provide them with economic security.

When they reach 65, most Wal-Mart employees will rely heavily on Social Security - if the privatizers don't kill it. And many Wal-Mart employees already rely on Medicaid to pay for health care, especially for their children.

Indeed, a growing number of working Americans have turned to Medicaid. As the Kaiser Family Foundation points out, that's why children have for the most part have retained health coverage, despite a sharp decline in employer-based health insurance since 2000.

Yet our current political leaders are trying to privatize Social Security and reduce benefits. And they are slashing funds for Medicaid even as they give big tax cuts to people like Mr. Lee.

The attack on the safety net is motivated by ideology, not popular demand. The public isn't taken with the vision of an "ownership society"; it seems to want more, not less, social insurance. According to a poll cited in a recent Business Week article titled "Safety Net Nation," 67 percent of Americans think we should guarantee health care to all citizens; just 27 percent disagree.

The question is whether the public's desire for a stronger safety net will finally be seconded by corporations that haven't yet adopted the Wal-Mart model of minimal benefits and always low wages.